The2000–01 FIBA SuproLeague wasFIBA Europe's professionalclub basketball tournament for the 2000–01 season. Up until that season, there was one cup, the FIBA European Champions' Cup (which is now called theEuroLeague), though in this season of 2000–01, the leading European teams split into two competitions: the FIBA SuproLeague andEuroleague Basketball Company'sEuroleague 2000–01.
The season started on 18 October 2000, and ended on 13 May 2001. Thecompetition's Final Four took place atPalais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, inParis, France. The 2000–01 SuproLeague was the last European top tier club competition organised by FIBA.
The European Champions' Cup was originally established byFIBA and it operated under its umbrella from 1958 until the summer of 2000, concluding with the1999–2000 season.Euroleague Basketball was created on 1 July 2000.
FIBA had never trademarked the "EuroLeague" name and had nolegal recourse on the usage of that name. Therefore, FIBA had to find a new name for their league and chose "SuproLeague". The 2000–01 season started with two top European professional club basketball competitions: the FIBA SuproLeague (renamed from the FIBA EuroLeague) and the brand newEuroleague.
20 teams (national domestic league champions, and runners-up from various national domestic leagues), playing in atournament system.
The first phase was a regular season, in which the twenty competing teams were drawn into two groups, each containing ten teams. Each team played every other team in its group at home and away, resulting in 18 games for each team. The top 8 teams in each group advanced to the Round of 16, and the winners of this round advanced to the Quarterfinals. Both of the rounds were played in aBest-of-three playoff system. The winning teams of the Quarterfinals qualified to theSuproLeague Final Four, which was held in thePalais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, inParis, on 10–13 May 2001.
Teams inbold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding, the numbers to the right indicate the result of games including result inbold of the team that won in that game, and the numbers furthest to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round.
In May 2001, Europe had two continental champions,Maccabi Tel Aviv of the FIBA SuproLeague andKinder Bologna ofEuroleague Basketball Company'sEuroLeague. The leaders of both organizations realized the need to come up with a new single competition. Negotiating from the position of strength, Euroleague Basketball Company dictated proceedings and FIBA essentially had no choice but to agree to their terms. As a result, the EuroLeague was fully integrated under Euroleague Basketball Company's umbrella, and teams that competed in the FIBA SuproLeague during the 2000–01 season joined it as well. It is today officially admitted that European basketball had two champions that year, Maccabi of the FIBA SuproLeague and Kinder Bologna of the Euroleague Basketball Company's EuroLeague.
A year later,Euroleague Basketball Company and FIBA decided that Euroleague Basketball's EuroLeague competition would be the main basketball tournament on the continent, to be played between the top-level teams of Europe.FIBA Europe from 2002 would also organize a European league forthird-tier level teams, known as theFIBA Europe League competition, while Euroleague Basketball would also organize its own second-tier level league, combining FIBA's long-timeFIBA Saporta Cup andFIBA Korać Cup competitions into one new competition, theEuroCup. In 2005, Euroleague Basketball and FIBA decided to cooperate with each other and did so until 2016.
In essence, the authority in European professional basketball was divided over club-country lines. FIBA stayed in charge of national team competitions (like theFIBA EuroBasket, theFIBA World Cup, and theSummer Olympics), while Euroleague Basketball took over the European professional club competitions. From that point on,FIBA Saporta Cup andFIBA Korać Cup competitions lasted only one more season before folding, which was when Euroleague Basketball launched theEuroCup.